Conman lands in cop net thanks to WhatsApp

Thursday, December 07, 2017

By Suresh Golani

Thanks to the alertness shown by a jewellery shop owner and footage from a surveillance camera which was circulated on social media platforms including WhatsApp, a notorious thief landed into the custody of the police.

Pretending to be a customer, the accused who has been identified as Ashok Nayak (24), had fled with two chains worth more than Rs 80,000 from Shree Mahavir Jewelers – a gold ornaments showroom in the Navghar Road area of Bhayandar (E). After the con job, sleuths of the Navghar police and the store owner Mangilal Jain had uploaded a photograph of the accused, along with a video grab from the store’s CCTV footage on social media platforms including WhatsApp. Jain also shared it with his contacts and local groups of jeweller’s associations. As a result, jewellers across Mumbai, Thane and Navi-Mumbai were alerted about the man.

When Nayak walked into a jewellery store in the Rabale area of Navi Mumbai, the owner who had received the photograph on his phone, recognised him and alerted his counterparts and the local police. Nayak was arrested immediately. “We took custody of the accused and recovered the entire booty which he had stolen from the store in our jurisdiction,” confirmed Senior Police Inspector Ram Bhalsingh. The accused, who has been remanded to judicial custody, is a resident of Bhayandar and is believed to be involved in a spate of similar crimes in and around the region. The incident is a lesson for several jewellers who do not install security cameras at their establishments, despite stocking ornaments worth lakhs of rupees.

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